On newsstands in Brighton
Beach, the Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood that is home to some 15,000
Russian immigrants, English-language publications are a rarity. Instead,
vendors sell more than 20 locally published Russian-language newspapers,
plus dozens of newspapers and magazines imported from Russia. But many of
the publications, which now are read primarily by older immigrants, are
looking for a fresh audience in order to stay afloat. RFE/RL reports on
efforts by New York's Russian-language media to change with the times.

New York, 30 December 2002
(RFE/RL) -- New York City is home to 600,000 Russian-speaking immigrants
from the former Soviet Union. Some 15,000 of them live in Brighton Beach, a
Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood reminiscent of the Ukrainian port city of
Odessa.

Russian music can he heard on
the street. Soviet-style shops bearing signs in Russian and English sell
goods imported from Russia, Ukraine, and the Caucasus. And the newsstands
offer a wide variety of Russian-language reading material.

Obit, an immigrant from
Uzbekistan, runs the neighborhood's largest newsstand. There are no
English-language publications to be found among his assortment of local and
imported newspapers and magazines. As Obit explained, there simply isn't any
need. "I don't sell English-language papers. I don't have any -- only
Russian papers. People in Brighton Beach are Russian speakers. No one is
going to buy English-language papers. You can hardly sell them, so I don't
sell them," Obit said.

Obit said his best-selling
items are the 20 or so locally published newspapers that offer Brighton
readers a useful blend of news and information pertinent to immigrant life.
The oldest is "Novoe Russkoe slovo." First published in 1910, it is the
oldest foreign-language paper in the United States. The newspaper, which
often runs articles without a byline, gives a smattering of world and local
news, as well as useful information about changes in U.S. immigration
policy.

Another popular paper is
"Russkii bazar," a thick weekly filled with current events, Russian-language
book reviews, and page after page of classified ads, travel offers, and
cultural events. The editor in chief of "Russkii bazar," Natasha Shapiro,
said the paper began eight years ago as a small publication dedicated
primarily to advertisements and classifieds. Since then, however, she said
the paper has responded to reader demand by boosting its coverage of Russian
events like October's hostage crisis in Moscow. "Whether you like it or not,
anything that happens in Russia and in Moscow -- the capital of the [former]
Soviet-bloc countries -- is reflected in our life here in America and in New
York. No matter who we are -- Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians, or
Georgians -- we are all considered 'Russians.' If something happens in
Russia that Americans find upsetting, you soon begin to notice that some
Americans are looking at us 'Russians' with suspicion. For this reason, it
would be unreasonable for us to ignore what is going on in Russia," Shapiro
said.

Nina Khrushcheva is the
great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and a professor of
media and culture at the New School University in Manhattan. Despite
contributing to Russian newspapers like "Nezavisimaya gazeta" and "Obshchaya
gazeta," Khrushcheva does not read New York-based Russian-language
newspapers, because, she said, their journalistic standards are low.
"Somehow it seems to me that when people are getting out of context, it does
happen that usual standards do not really apply. So the standards for
articles and the standards of journalism [in New York's Russian-language
press], from my point of view, are lower than they usually would be. Even
the Russian media in its native country is not particularly good at fact
checking -- it's always more of editorializing and opinions. So you can
imagine [the standards of] all those immigrants who came here and became
journalists or were journalists before," Khrushcheva said.

In addition to print media,
Russian speakers in the United States can listen to Narodnaya volna radio,
which broadcasts from Manhattan. They can also watch Russian Television
International (RTV), a satellite channel offering all-Russian programming.

RTV, which also broadcasts to
Russian communities in Israel and Western Europe, is owned by Vladimir
Gusinskii, the Russian entrepreneur who has seen his fortunes dwindle since
losing his Russian media empire, including the private NTV television
channel. In the United States, RTV has some 200,000 subscribers, the vast
majority of whom are based in Brooklyn neighborhoods like Brighton Beach.

RTV offers news coverage from
Russia, Israel, and New York. While its Russian and Israeli coverage tends
to reflect the more serious news issues of the day, its New York stories can
sometimes tend toward the frivolous, as in the following report on a contest
for the sexiest Russian couple in Brighton Beach: "Thanks to a contest for
the sexiest Russian couple recently held in the Big Apple, everybody now
knows who is New York's sexiest."

Such coverage
notwithstanding, Khrushcheva said RTV's team of journalists -- many of whom
are former NTV staffers -- provide high-quality news for Russian-speaking
immigrant communities. "What I have seen was good. I mean, it is a little
more sensationalist than I would like to have, but they probably do check
the facts. And I know that a lot of people watch it around the world. I do
know a lot of immigrants, especially after a certain age -- say 40, 45, 50
-- they do watch it, and in fact it is their connection to what Russia is. I
mean, they all subscribe and they want to know what is the Russian opinion,
of the world and of Russia, around the world," Khrushcheva said.

The older audience
Khrushcheva describes is not limited to RTV. Most of New York's
Russian-language newspapers have an aging readership, with younger
immigrants turning more often to English-language media for their
information. Natalya Kane came to Brighton Beach 10 years ago, when she was
24. She said that while she still reads the Russian-language press for
immigration-related news she can't find elsewhere, newspapers like "Novoe
Russkoe slovo" are really for the community's older generations. "Old people
in particular -- not those of my generation -- [read the Russian-language
press]. My grandmother reads only Russian papers. If she didn't have these
papers to read, she would drive me mad bothering me all the time [saying],
'Tell me about it, translate it for me.' Now she reads it [by herself]. If
something happens in the world, she can read about it. She watches [Russian]
television all day long. She loves the [Peruvian] serial 'Isabella' and the
news," Kane said.

New York's Russian-language
media, aware of the dwindling interest of younger audiences, are taking
steps to reverse the trend. "Novoe Russkoe slovo," for example, several
years ago launched a special page for younger readers with news about
Russian pop music and anecdotes about political life, sex, as the section's
editor, Viktor Smolny, said, "anything that drives them."

Smolny said a young reader's
interest in Russian culture is often determined by how many years he or she
has already spent in the United States. "Of course, it depends sometimes on
the time that a person has spent here. If the person was brought here as a
young child, let's say at the age of 3 or 4 or 5, and started to learn to
write and read in English first and only knows a couple of words in Russian,
but doesn't really consider it his or her native language, of course these
people would not be a likely audience for this page. But then there are
other people who came here at a more developed age, teenagers or some even
older than that who still consider themselves young, and they want to read
not only English-language publications but something in their native
language as well," Smolny said.

In neighborhoods like
Brighton Beach, it is difficult to imagine that the predominance on Russian
culture, food, and entertainment will ever fade away entirely. But unless
the Russian-language press succeeds in winning back younger readers,
newsstands like Obit's may have to make room for other New York papers, like
"The New York Times" and the "Daily News.